AN AMERICAN WEREWOLf IN PARIS By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Hollywood Pictures/Cornerstone Pictures Director: Anthony Waller Writer: Tim Burns & Tom Stern & Anthony Waller Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Julie Delpy, Vince Vieluf, Phil Buckman, Julie Bowen, Pierre Cosso, Thierry Lhermitte, Tom Novembre
There was a time that college kids going to Europe said to their stay-at-home buddies, "Eat your heart out, pal." Things are quite different now, as Anthony Waller would have us believe in his role at the helm of "An American Werewolf in Paris." Now the slogan might be the very reverse: "So you're going to Paris? Eat your heart out." Waller's campy horror comedy-thriller, which he wrote together with Tim Burns and Tom Stern and which is based on characters created by John Landis in Landis's messy 1981 opus, "An American Werewolf in London," comes off best during its initial half hour. After the fun dialogue, shenanigans and fantasies which three young Yanks share with us as they tour the City of Lights, the movie simply degenerates. In doing so Waller falls into the lapse suffered recently by scripter Quentin Tarantino in the Robert Rodriguez film "From Dusk Till Dawn." That tamale Western gives us a first act brimming with tough talk and violent action, magnetic in its story and pacing, and favored with a charismatic villain played by George Clooney. "From Dusk Till Dawn" then retrogresses into a by-the- numbers vampire gross-out, shedding all pretense of character development, action with at least internal logic, and people the audience could sympathize with.
After a blood-and-thunder prelude which takes us promptly to a central Parisian boulevard on a dark and stormy night, Waller's film settles into a pleasantly humorous banter of its three principal, fun-loving males: Andy (Tom Everett Scott), Brad (Vince Vieluf) and Chris (Phil Buckman). Traveling together on a train across the French countryside they challenge one another in a game of one-upmanship on their sexual experiences, each offering to grant "points" to the other two for each success they have in "boinking" the sophisticated Parisian coeds they might meet. In the story's most flat-out hilarious scene, Andy sits in a cafe with a young French woman he has met, Serafine (Julie Delpy) under the most unusual circumstances, trying to convince her that he respects and likes her as a person and not simply as a potential bed mate. When a half dozen condoms spill out of his pocket--courtesy of his pals' donation to him just before the date--he pretends that they are merely the latest type of American chewing gum. We in the audience remain a step or two ahead of the performers as soon as Serafine warns Andy that he must give her up immediately for his own safety: "It's not you, it's me, " she insists, and in this case she can be taken at her word.
It is currently fashionable to say that the wolf is one of the world's most beautiful creations. Those who remain skeptical will join the trendies when they watch Ms Delpy--a lovely actress who charmed us so much in the French-language movie "White"--transform into a such a creature under the full moon. It's not long before Waller--recapping "From Dusk Till Dawn" but simply replacing vampires with lupine curiosities-- throws before us an epidemic of morphing. Waller does not even trust the patience of his audience to become wrapped up in teasingly slow metamorphoses of human beings to bizarre animals with incredible strength and a curious love for human blood. Wouldn't you expect him at least to show the hair slowly sprouting on hands which simultaneously exchange manicured nails for well-honed claws? No way. They simply convert one-two-three and they're off and running. We meet folks who are dead-dead, like Serafine's stepfather; others who are undead, like Amy the bimbo; and the Lupus Vulgaris types who are alive but are human beings only part-time. At least in Landis's 1981 London version, the David Naughton character turns into a werewolf with real style: hands elongating and growing claws, face twisting into a snout and fangs.
Still, Tom Everett Scott makes a charming Andy with a modicum of chemistry for the lovely Julie Delpy, two characters who literally fall for each other not once but twice: over the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty in a decently- executed pair of bungee jumps. Perhaps to add at least a bit of class to the film, the writers throw in--but are too embarrassed to elaborate--a political scenario: the werewolves who are members of an exclusive club guarded over by Mr. Clean are really skinheads during the day who believe they are purifying the planet by getting rid of the sick, the dependent, the halt and the lame. "Werewolf" is ultimately a heartless exercise in more ways than one. Rated R. Running Time: 100 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten
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